it makes me feel better. she played along nicely. and so we're on the banks of the -- we had a nice life. i had a consulting practice i was happy with. i like the balance in any life. my wife was working with university. we had a nice quiet life. one of the goals she thought she we should a family. i thought that more than me than

the two dogs. i was for that. and then i said, i think i have one -- i had done before on the 2004 race. i think i have one president, election in me. if we start a family, i would like to get one manufacture more presidential. she was okay with nap i had two candidates i liked. i asked to around people they didn't see al gore getting in. the other was john edwards. i liked john edwards at the time. and that didn't go -- there was a little bit of back and forth going on with that. and that didn't seem to be developing. so didn't look like anything was going to happen. there was one other candidates i liked. it was president obama. four years and a half years ago people back in the fall of 2006 would say things like, he's

never going get elected there's no way america would elect a prime african-american you can't get elected with the name barack obama. it's actually didn't matter. i didn't know anybody in chicago. i didn't know anybody around the candidate. so it didn't look like anything was going to be happening. december 26, december 26, 2006 my wife and i were shopping day after christmas we were shopping in a borns and noble just up the road in california. my phone goes off. this is right out of west wing. it's like, my tornado watch. it's somebody calling to find out if i'm interesting in working with the barack obama campaign. and so, of course, i was. i was quickly connected with a guy named steve held brand who became the deputy campaign manager. he was assessing staff. i thought i was apply forking the job for national campaign

manager. it's voter exact. i thought i got to put it on the table i'm perfect for the job. i said, steve never indicated back that i was being considered for national campaign directer. but i put it out there. i said, steve, here's the thing, we can take, you know, we can make it so that people can download literature, economize it, bring out to the neighborhoods or the club, we can also, you know, we tested this product back in 2004 that would make it possible that would a cell phone internet connection and computer you can turn your kitchen table in to a phone bank. you can turn your kitchen in to a staging area or min campaign headquarter. put it all on the line. i was like, i had the idea that was not probably new. i had the idea and the vendor i thought i crowld bring forward. i thought a d a great job. i heard later that david, the campaign manager said, asked about me and steve said he had

some interesting ideas sponsorship thought, that's good. it turns out that i think what steve meant he had some interesting ideas. i didn't hear anything from them for many, many weeks, actually. i mean, actually the campaign -- the candidate was on tv one night one day, when i was watching that evening announcing his bid for president. this was around february, i think february 12th. if i remember right. and i watched it on tv. and my phone had been long dead. i thought, that's it. right. and then suddenly the phone starts to ring again and things are happening again. people talking to me. the next thing i know i'm being asked to come to chicago to assess staff. and to evaluate some of the operations and so i thought, this outside good. they offered me a job in management. and i thought, this is great. so i said there's only one thing i have to do there are been

something that changed since december 26. i have to talk to my wife. and make sure that she's -- it's a fair affair, and i talked to her and we decided because my wife was now pregnant, and we wanted to make sure everything was okay with the baby. if everybody is okay. we'll go to the doctor on march 1st. we'll. march 1st my next day i remember. we walked out of the doctor's office, baby heart was beating. everything was fine. we walked out the doctor officer. it triggered. we give our thirty days notice. tell my client, they knew it was coming. jump on a plane, fly to chicago, sign the paperwork, and start working. and i went back and got my wife later. and so they say, you know, if you have a big life event, that is supposed to your put your health at risk. in one day, have a baby, quit my job, going to, you know, fly

chicago, start a new house, start new life. i was like a walking heart attack the day i walked in the door. and i think everybody, by the way, brings in their own story that is unique. you come in enthusiastic. there is something going on in your life as you're managing the entrance in to a situation like that. let's talk about just a few lessons from the early days we were going go questions. what coming in chicago. setting up the campaign. because i get the question a lot. how can you guys do it? it was organized. you seemed so tight. it was a disciplined operation. what was the secret behind it? let he tell you what the early days of chicago was like. now remember march 1st, few weeks free from the announcement, when we still didn't have the headquarter yet. the candidate announced and we have a headquarter.

so it was probably about another month before we did. i was sandwiched in a room with a few other people. we were in a temporary, like, office with people buzzing around all the time. i couldn't keep track of the new people. but what was happening was we couldn't fit everybody in the office. there were people actually in hotel conference rooms. there were people in legal law firm conference rom, they could get an internet connection. people in starbucks where they could get an internet connection. people working at the kitchen tables around town. and all of a sudden, right around april 1st. bestart moving to the headquarter. this is literally six week aways from the announcement. and this just this big space. bigger than the room. far bigger than the room. three or four times of the size of the room. it was a whole floor of the high-rise building in chicago, and it was just kind of remarkable. we didn't have everybody in. we were slowly bringing people in.

literally we were still getting the servers up. we had telephones ringing and people try to answer phone calls. we had e-mail coming in to our e-mail address. we didn't have a system to receive e nail a real way that you would want. we had many coming many. we didn't have budgets. and we had, you know, we had constituency leaders calling our political department because they wanted to have time with the candidate, we had our fundraisers, who had to raise money with the little known barack obama brand against this what was really just a mismatch against hillary clinton and we are literally on the airplane in mid flight. it was a crazy time. and i remember in those early day i remember the candidate coming through headquarter and he was walking from the back of the room. he was wearing black societies heading my way. i couldn't focus on him. all i could think of it's just a big desk farm with open computer boxes. how are we going if i the

space. the walls were white. just like this. the sunlight was coming through the win go. we didn't have campaign sign age. we didn't have anything to put on the walls get. he's walking toward me, and i was thinking, i remember this time because it's really one of the last times i think i talked to him when he didn't have secret service detail. and i'm sure his life changed from that moment. i was thinking, i look back on that and think how much my life changed too. he was tethered to the blackberry that was constantly a stream of things coming a me. it was the -- you know, i'll tell you one more story about the first moment. michelle obama. i met michelle obama when she game to headquarter. she was disturbed about the white walls. she actually had a party for the children of staff so they could have pizza and could do color -- we did obama art with 5-year-old

and 8-year-olds. she got a whole bunch of kid posters. we had them all over the headquarter until we got our sign age. those posters, the kids' art stayed up for the whole campaign. it got layered and lost with the sign j. but it was kind like just very michelle obama. you hear about her dedication to kids. that was how i met her. the period of the early days of the campaign. it was, you know, i loved talking about this time because it was an elect trait time in the campaign. it was spiritful, innovative, and hepful. and the migration to chicago was like a -- like the testament to the lure reward of entrepreneurship. people leaving everything tbhiend pursue the unimaginable. it became the gathering place for idealist, innovators, risk

takers and while it's true that, you know, i guess you could say that the young had less to risk and nor believe in. we had people coming off wall street. we had people living their law practices. weapon had peopling -- coming out of board rooms to join the campaign. it was inspiring occur during the time. we had the energetic sort of mix of people. now this is kind of funny. we were putting our workplaces together. and feverishly. you get your workplace up and then, you know, you're off and running. you need a computer. there's only one guy who can put up your computer. a guy named sam. he's working through the headquarter and trying to get people plugged in and their phones going and the whole thing. we called him sam the red sox fan. because he wore a ball cap and the jersey to work every day. none of us knew each other's last name. you would say sam red sox fan.

he tried to get you going. people scurry around you have the energy going on. and as people start to sort of give an camp what's going on. we you have the high energy going on. it could be very, very intox candidating. we don't have constitutional history together to guide us. we don't have parameters that you might have in the northerly workplace. we are just -- we're a workplace without boundaries. we have a man you'll we could give people that was this thick. it was about about five pages. an employee manual. i don't know what we put in it. might have here's how you can get your health insurance benefit. here are the restrooms. you have the energetic group of people and their competitive. and maybe you could even say we're a little bit ambitious. right. you come in to the environment, many people came in without a

job. they were volunteers and want to get a job. some people -- they want to get noticed by the right people. and they, you know, and you have people who have been hired who want maybe more responsibility. right than they probably traditional in their job. and the department heads who are racing against each other maybe to get a little more budget than the other and get a little more turf than the others and you might expect. you have the thing going on it's a chaotic time. you need to get control of this. because, you know, in this environment, where there no sort of norms, it's like building -- it is like building a village from scratch. everybody comes to a place with no rules or enormous, no structures, right, it's like the wild west. and not everybody, you know, some people who, you know, have their own tactics for getting their own way. right. sometimes even good people lose control of the inner jerks.

it's a problem early in the campaign. we all have them. come on. so, you know, you throw an elbow at the stranger you don't know. maybe that turns to an ongoing securish and rivally develop. and blame starts to fly. reputations start to fail, your leadership can die in the first days if you don't manage yourself right in the environment. and campaigns uniquely grow from the seeds of turmoil. so how do you get control of the kind of environment. sometimes if, you know, you have the campaigns that can continue to grow up with the dysfunction and you don't know what's happening in the other campaigns. we heard the knives were sharp end in the clinton campaign. you don't know. it it's like -- it's like poker you know what your hand is you don't know what the other hands are in the other campaigns. later down the campaign trail things started show up in the news. the campaign unnamed campaign

staffer said this about a named campaign staffer and you start connecting dots there are power center that e emerged and, you know, some factions that might be happening in the other campaigns. if you don't get control of the early you grow up with the chaos. how do we do it? i give a candidate all the credit. and there were three things getting to work a little bit. to start that little bit. three principles he gave our staff in the very earliest days. no drama. respect everyone. build it from the bottom up. no drama, respect everyone, build it from the bottom up. i think everybody know about no drama. it was really, it was all we had to hang our hats on as on organization. fighting wasn't going to be tolerated. respect everyone it became the corner stone for the collaborative environment we

had. we to breakthrough some silos and things but we got there. and build it from the bottom up. i think that's, you know, i think people know about that. saw that in action. not just in the communities but that was also how we were supposed to work as campaign. right. and so this was important for us. it gave us a culture and form. even late in the campaign, many, many months later we had clinton staff coming to the campaign after we won the nomination. i remember clinton former clinton staffer coming to me, henry i want to be more forceful about whatever issue is bothering her. you have the no drama obama thing. it lasted through the whole campaign. through the bumps of, you know, the different forms we went through a a campaign. the different, you know, crisis we went to together. and so it was more than just that. it wasn't just about our culture. he actually gave us an idea of

the kind of person we should in the campaign; right, the kind of person we should hire. which is freeing for me as a manager. now i'm not just hiring people with long résume and certain skill sets. i'm hiring a type of person; right, the no drama, respect everyone build it from the bottom up. it changed the face of our organization. i describe, i remember having later a conversation with my old mentor from harvard, gentleman named david who i give the credit for helping me be ready for the five years i spent with the obama both in the campaign and the white house. he met me he asked me to meet far coffee or drink late in the campaign i got off early that night. it was 30u9 and i met him he said what was the secret to obama's success? it was about three weeks out. i don't think he was predicting november. he was looking to the point. what was the secret to the success. i said, i explained him to the

type of person you had. you hired leaders. and i said, i only hired leaders. i never would have filled a spot with nonleader. which is counter intuitive of thinking you have one leader at toot im. when i look back at the -- the hope and change maker i described that person as three things. four things, actually. -- [inaudible] mind, you know, a heart, entrepreneurial spirit, and collaborative approach. innovative minds, service heart, entrepreneurial spirit and collaborative approach. and i think that was whatnot only was the type of person that was drawn to the campaign, to our staff, but also drawn to the campaign more broadly in the communities. and so one more thing and i'm going go to questions. i want to say about this. candidate not only, you know,

gave us the advice. he lived by the advice. i remember the day he decided to make his biggest probably the biggest hire in the campaign. joe biden in august. and i remember when i learned that he picked joe biden. i was like really, joe biden. this is not -- this is a not-so -- guy. 30 years in the senate. he's almost seemed like everyone we were campaigning against. let me tell you that joe biden when he came in. i couldn't have liked him more. he was everything that you would think. he was no drama. the most unassuming interest to the campaign that we could have had for a guy who had the senate trappings. you almost didn't notice he came in. respect everyone. i think that's obvious, and there isn't a more bottom up kind of go than joe biden. he integrated so well in to the campaign. he was part of us, you heard

how, you know, there were divisions within the mccain twain between mccain camp and the palin camp. we didn't have a camp. right, you could see the value of that kind of chemistry him coming inspect. had he came in, he actually -- he wanted to meet the staff. and he said you could tell how excited he was. he said, you know, -- you know, you guys are the ones that kicked my ass on the campaign trail. i wish i could have found an easier way to get here. i'm glad to be here. he was warmly received by all of us. it gets to a final point here about the candidate. he would go out to people and he would say, if you want to know how i'm going run my campaign, or if you want to know what kind of president i'll be, watch how i run my campaign. he went to community after community after community and said that. if you want to know what kind of president i'll be. watch how i run my campaign. that's a bold thing for a candidate to say.

because campaigns are so complicated. and there is so much going on. it for the talk about barack obama that he, you know, that he was never met a payroll. never had a business before, he took control, he took control of the culture and the' those. -- he would gather us in the first days like a half-moon and say look, i'm learning my way on the campaign trail. i still don't have my footing yet. i'm making mistake. i'm counting on you guys on. had would say that. he didn't miss a beat early on about how to command the organization. when he would go out and say, watch how i run my campaign. that elevated people like me because we had a lot of pride many what he was you know what he was asking us rise up to. and so i'm going to stop right there. maybe get to some q & a. but i hope we can get a few

questions about maybe some of my experience. pull out some questions you might have about career path and different other things. >> so we have some time for q&a. i wanted to give a couple of brief ground rules. we have a mic right here. if you want to ask a question, you should step up there and ask one. but the sort of quick ground rules are just make sure the question is a question. there should be a question mark at the end of it. that's how you'll know. try to be brief, if you can with the question. and after you ask give henry a bit of time to answer. you may want to just have a seat or whatever. the mic is right here. if we can have folks show up and ask a question.

>> i'd like to hear the rest of the white baseball cap and sweat pants story you started to tell and went off. >> that was it. he actually -- well, let me tell you something he said. he said to me he said this to me more than once. he said, he used to say about the campaign, keep it tight. you know how i like it run tight. and my first day actually at my swearing in, i saw him again, this is many years a couple of years later and he said the same thing. he really valued, one of the things i liked about anymore those days, you know, was the fact that this was a candidate he would say we're going do it differently. and run it like a business. he was principle-driven, and i liked that. you know, i'll just dial back beginningly. when i started my own practice, i wanted every day every day

people to run for political office. i wanted them to learn the principles of success of leadership, of running and organization and not in the tactics. and so i worked -- you know, there was a lot of things going on until the democratic party. you could learn how to do a door knock and make a speech and learn how to be a candidate. i wanted people to learn how to be a ceo of the their own organization. i wanted them to entrepreneur their way to the election. that was a thing that he would do in those -- from the earliest days you were impressed with the fact that he an appreciation the principles that drove success, he was long headed. he never got caught up in the headline of the day. maybe we'll talk about that more as we go. he was looking down the road always. that, i mean, that was just it. he was kind of through. it was a moment that stuck with me because it felt like at the time it didn't mean anything. it was later when i started to look back, i released he got

secret service detail. i think on some level you lose something this that moment. i never heard him complain about it. sometimes i think you lose there's a change that happens when you're an ordinary guy and all the sudden the changes start to happen that traps form you -- transform. you get to more questions, yeah. you can line up. go ahead line up. we'll -- . >> one of the exciting part about the campaign for me was his obama's response for description of his relationship with the reverend jeremy wright. could you talk about your role in that damage control. that was an incredible speech, his language, the taupe, -- tone, the pace. i was mesmerized. i would love if you could give .

>> i didn't like the speech. >> no? >> but i was wrong. right. >> why? >> let me give you a little -- let me go back a little bit. and you can sit down. i'll take a little while to answer this. so yeah, getting to that moment, i didn't know much about reverend wright in the days. i knew there was this person out there and, you know, throughout the life of the campaign, to me it felt like the uncle you didn't want at dinner. i didn't know much about it. i didn't want to know about it. i, you know, it was something that i didn't concern myself with. when the rend wright when the whole thing hit on tv it did cause a national stir. and i, you know, when you have a crisis, things just happen both outside and inside. you're dealing with the issue,

obviously this be is an issue between two men. this is a very personal thing. but from the campaign side, i wanted the issue to sort of be done with. right, i wanted to solve it. i was looking for in the speech at the time i was thinking, we need to just -- i personally thought we had to cut ties, you know, we to to move on. and that was the only way we could do it. i didn't feel like the speech went far enough with that. it was silly. it was an amazing speech. and, by the way, with his help of his speech writer, john, and it was just at right speech, the right tone. there was everything that was right about it. and i also just would say that i just thought it was one of the those things where you had i don't know i'm making this up. at the time, i thought there was two men who have long histories together and? is man brought him to christ and brought his married him to his

wife and baptized this children. there's a personal thing going on. boy, it must be hard for them to go to sleep every night tortured by this. i think that until the end when i thought that was really amazing about that. i thought that he handled it in the end with real grace. i think people watched him go through this process, and in fact, he didn't really leave the church officially for about another month and a half, i think. i think it spoke a lot to him. f he would have handled it way i thought about it. it would be a disaster. it's not just a pr crisis. what's going on. what happens in any any crisis when the money stop, right. all the money stops. and this was the part i was seeing. is like, okay, money is not coming in. people are starting to panic. you know, the fundraisers want to revise the goals down.

the cfo was nervous. she can't cut back the spending. even in the moment as the organization inside. he came together between the different players and we worked out a plan that helped us to get through the time. we knew this was a slurp in terms of the pun pun. we knew things would work out over time. they did. i had a different view of this, and i was reacting a little bit at the time to nose events. -- to those events. >> my question is actually a two-part. how would you compare the obama campaign you were part of versus the campaign of today? and then the second part that have question would be how would you contrast the obama campaign versus the romney campaign? >> well, that's a great question. i mean, i remember being in a room -- we used to have the meeting every morning in

chicago, and i remember sitting in this room. it was later in the campaign, it was maybe september, october, maybe sometime around this time and we would meet every morning with the senior staff. i remember looking out the window of the high-rise. i remember thinking could i do it again in every day you come together and you plan out what is going to happen during the day and at night i would come home and turn on the tv. because, you know, you have the meeting and everybody scattered and did what they were going to do. you hear what the candidates is going to do that cay and the execution of the event of the day. i would come home at night and see how the event went. you would see the event play ought in the farway city. i think i thought then it was done. this is as much as i could do. i decided i wasn't going duodwo 2012. my son, you know, was now a year old at this point. so he -- he's the only baby born in term one during the life of

the campaign. he's the obama baby. my second baby, i'm digressing, my second son, was born about 120-day mark of the new administration. so we had a lot of stuff going on at home too. and so when i look at it, it's so different. because this time four years ago i had 58 races under my belt. the obama campaign had not one yet this year. i just think that this is really hard work to go -- many of them left for chicago about two years ago. and it's, you know, some people may describe it in the news as a flog. i imagine it is. it's probably really hard to go that long and have that one day at the very end. and i can't imagine, you know, and so that's a difference. i don't know yet. that's there. at this point, you had 58, 57 or 58 tests of us you could see how we were doing. we haven't had that yet for the obama campaign.

even romney had races under his belt. we have a sense how the organization is working. i expect it's a tight organization. and i think romney's, you know, has had a lot of the same challenges we had in 2008 than this campaign has in 2012. that's the difference between those. in terms of the different i think your question was the romney and obama this time; right? well, there are two different campaigns. one is challenging campaign and one is an incumbent campaign. i think romney, if i was just to, you know, know one is asking for my advice. ly say that you see him coming toward the debate his campaign is coming toward the debate. and i think one of those challenges at the -- i'm going it talk about both campaigns. i want to keep it even-handed here. one of the challenges the romney campaign is going to have the criticism is that he's not connecting. right, you hear that a lot. he doesn't connect.

what's wrong with mitt romney and actually, i don't know he seems like a nice enough guy. he was my governor for awhile and i thought hef competent in massachusetts. one things he hasn't done in connecting it's not like he not connecting with people. i know, that. the thing that is going on, he's not been able to say why his time at bain would make him ready for president and that's the connection that i think people are not seeing, and he can get warm and talk about roses on the mother's bedside table like at the convention. it's moving. until he starts connecting in that way, i think he's going continue to struggle on the front. i think the obama campaign going in to the debates, doesn't the burden here. but probably would, you know, should talk about what the next four years will be like, and i expect that that will happy

during the debate. but i said that here. because i'm talking tactically here. the challenger has the burden. we have a history with barack obama. we have a sense what he's done. we have a sense what he's like and what he will do. when you're the challenger, you have to say why you will be cimpt. and obama did that in 2008, and that's the thing that romney is going have -- i think will be need to do. we are evaluating one of the president as the champion, so to speak in boxing terms. we are evaluating one of the challenger. if you don't play the role of the challenge netter minds of people, well, then it's hard to imagine you'll play the role of the champ well. that's my own sort of two cents on that. >> we all know that the words we use are very important. on the campaign that you worked on, how did the candidate choose which keywords or catch phases

he wanted to use? and to what degree was that influenced by what he thought the voters wanted to hear and . >> yeah, i can't -- let me tell you what i can't probably speak for the candidate here. whatly say is that let me talk about how words came across maybe differently than people might have thought. for example, you know, the hope and change and the yes we can. sop of those things america we can believe in. if you look at the way he -- we talked about words back then with, i really felt even forward, which is a slogan right. i say slogan, but, you know, there's a lot of talk when he came out with "forward" it seems odd. why not "america built to last" or some of the other things. the thing i liked about president obama is that he uses words as a e those not as a

slogan. i thought "forward was perfect. if you think about it as a slogan. forward when you, you know, it has -- there was only something if i was in the campaign right now, i would see forward -- i would take that internal lose that like okay, staff, you guys are involve. all of the people inside you have gone this hard this long. keep going. persevere and it has a different meaning for people outside. and same thing with yes we can. i, you know, so the thing that i think fascinating about way he would use words. two things, one was in his speeches, he would talk as the candidate and would talk as the ceo. for example, if you look at the iowa speech, i don't going now from my pea brain. i'm not going to get it totally right. i remember after iowa he gave a speech and he talked about the importance of organizers in the

communities. he was literally talking right to our staff in iowa and to all of us. after we had the -- we suffered the loss, i suppose many of you remember the moment when hillary clinton maybe maybe didn't cry in new hampshire. we lost. it was a stunning moment for us. he did the speech, if you lock a back on the new hampshire speech, yes, we can. and, you know, we had the moment in headquarter after the defeat. it was jaggerring. we were stunned. we were supposed to win the race, if you remember. we were like double budget favorite the morning of the election. we lost and i remember david -- david assistant katie johnson said, listen, it was late at night it was like 10:00. i called everybody at my team and katie said make sure everybody watches the speech. okay. great my people coming from the shadow of the dark of headquarter.

it's nighttime. people are at work. coming from the darkness and have a team of people around me. we are talking about it. and all of the sudden the -- you see the headquarter head toward the. tv i thought it was happening in all of our offices. the president was about -- the candidate was about to speak. he did the speech called yes, we can. it had the theme of yes, we can. and in the speech he talked about -- it was the best, you know, victory speech i had ever heard in dpe dpe feet. he talked about the long lines the polls hep congratulated hillary clinton on a grate great race. he talked about line longs at poem do you head it happen. i don't think he was talking to us. he was talking to hillary clinton's staff. inside he had the message if you go back and look at the speech. literally in headquarter, when everybody started claps. as if he had been speaking to us. that was, i think, the real

value. david was a master of being able to make an e-mail that would speak to -- he treated all of our -- all of our lists, so to speak, as if everybody was a stakeholder. he always made you feel like he was bringing everybody along with you. that meant that everybody was like an insider. and so, you know, so you look back on yes, we can, and you look back on, you know, moments like that. i always thought it was sort two of things that were happening at one time. and i have to say, i didn't follow it this time. i expect they're doing something much the same. that was happening back then. >> hi, i have to ask, could you have done the job you did grow didn't have the affinity you did for the candidate. >> in the campaign or in the white house? i guess you're . >> the campaign. >> no. no. but let me just tell you a little bit. i appreciate the question.

you put so much on the line. first of all, if we didn't really believe in the candidate, we wouldn't have moved, you know, and gone and done this. and but the thing that is kind of inspiring, was that, you know, we had -- i think it was an unusual election from anything we had seen before. we had a crowd and we would to count up. usually when you do a crowd count, you count down. we have 500 people. make room for 400. it was a phenomena in many years of organizing i had never seen before. but i will say that you put it, you know, you put it all on the line for the person. you know, i think it's really hard when you're db it's like a football player that their coach leaves in the middle of the season. it's really hard to -- when you get betrayed by the candidates. the thing i liked about the candidate. he was honest with us.

like, for example in the early days. i don't it right over here. it was candid for a candidate to say. i thought he was refreshing and it was probably another reason why i don't think i'll do another race again. i think i had the perfect moment for myself. right. so thank you. >> we sort of answered my question with that. >> good. >> i wanted to add on to it. here he is doing the speeches in the addressing nonth not -- not only the constituents but his own people the staffers with the language. when you went back to the headquarter or to the headquarter in the area, did you watch how this a language affected the staffers? their reaction to it? it was mixed, was it in support, how was that langge received by them by his speeches? >> yeah, i mean, it was obviously people -- there were high points at the speech on the speech on the -- the ones i was

remembering was new hampshire, iowa, you know, the thing that was -- maybe if i could pivot a little bit. the thing i thought it was interest when you talk about language and the words was how we use picture. i don't know if people paid attention to that. obviously, the candidate had a great command of language. and david axelrod, the chief strategies is a strong command of language. he was a journalist. the thing i thought was interesting about the campaign was also the running narrative, you know, you could look -- you could probably look at now, it was kind of really, you know, a beautiful story. if you really look tat. if you look at the period right after -- i guess right after new hampshire. maybe even with the new hampshire speech, but when he rolled through -- after we lost new hampshire, we had this

period where we had to learn how to win again. we were going in to nevada and we were probably to going to lose there. we did lose by, i think by six points. i think we won by one point in the caucus count. the delegate count. we were going to south carolina. between those, there was about twenty days you started introducing the candidates out of iowa and you would see moments, for example, when we were in kansas with kathleen sib see bill yous. david had a gift of rolling out endorsement. he told a story with the endorsement. he never let the endorsement step on the message what we were trying to do. the story in kansas was that, you know, the grant parents had met there during the depression, they were trying to carve out, you know, life for themselves. and there's really bleak time what they wanted to do for their daughter, and we were introduced

to kathleen the candidate formed by the heard land values we didn't know. you had, for example, the rollout of bill bradley in new hampshire. right, which was an interesting he had a good run against al gore, and so you had the story of this also this sort of candidate, going to take on the establishment, that would energize new hampshire elect rate. after last john care rate some point. john kerry which -- you started seeing a story. he went to denver and start talking about he was going to come back and be here for the convention. ..

it looked like he darty been anointed anointed president of the united states at that moment. there was so. that night george bush is going to the state of the union, the dull affair, the last state of the union with god popularity. you can see that contrast, you know. i'm not an, kathleen sebelius is the counter dresser and comes out and endorses the president the next day or a couple days

later. we didn't need an election to win. we had a moment were overcame out and mrs. obama came out and maria shriver came out. so there is just this going on at the time menu which had these pictures. one more example of this come the foreign trip we had. he was meeting with heads of state, with teens, he did this rally with 215,000 people in berlin. and you know, these pictures at how much with john mccain on three bush restored. some enduring something in his car. we were in germany with this big crowd. she goes you know, his first day on that trip he sees a three-point shot in turn of the troops with george h.w. bush at a country club on a golf these kinds of pictures coming in now, i think started from these two

people who really understood language in the narrative. you could see this happening on the center of the campaign and to help swarms picture for people in their mind. >> being a lover of campaign, how would you differentiate campaign trails, from doing what you have to get the guy. >> the campaign trails from -- >> from a propaganda machine, just a what you have to get the candidate on the campaign trial. >> well, you now, i just don't think voters go through propaganda machines. maybe they did at one time. you see this all the time. people want an authentic candidate. i think today's candidate, and this is i guess that is frustrated about what are starting band practice. i thought people were running tactics and not even a propaganda machine, but just

sort of running tactics could you just have to -- this is really striking. you have to define yourself, lest he be defined by someone else. bash is the lesson for life quite wrinkly. on the campaign trail, it's never more striking. so i think people see through it now when there's no market for it anymore. kumar questions and i will wrap up. >> about fund raising -- can you hear me? you mentioned about the polls obama greeted initially with the donors and you also mentioned when there was a pasture issue with obama that fund started dropping. so i'm wondering, are you talking about large donors and how important are the $75 you'll be invited to dinner, the

grassroots kinds of things. >> that's a good question. can i get your question, to? will take them both together. >> i am kind of wondering, when you pick the language of your campaign, how do you choose that? you interview a demographic? do you look at words and see what their meanings maybe you're how they could be construed or even misconstrued? when you're going up against another candidate, do you think of words that are going to be powerful against them? 30 think they'll be powerful before the candidate representing? >> thank you, okay. only take up the question first about i always just say that i think, you know, donors are investors, right? so what are your investing time

or money or whatever that is, you notice when beyers a confidence crisis around you. it is not like coming in now, for me frankly, it's not like i know there's a donor right in front of me or anything like that. you know, they are very dedicated people who are giving their time and resources. they're not only open in moscow cup of pudding reputations on the line. if i asked someone else to give to my candidate, i'm putting my on the line. so you have stakeholders and that is just part of what happens. when there is a crisis, even what you're seeing on the news, we never really know from the outside with the effect of that crisis really is on the inside, but we do now that you will see a in a report will come out in

the sec, federal election commission filing that the campaign has to fire by the end of the month. what we might feel inside, if there is something to feel, we will feel it two weeks before it shows up or sometimes even a month before it shows up on paper. so it's not like it runs is it right when happens. and it can happen with the grassroots in it can happen with the big donors. you know, people react to what they see. sometimes, by the way, crisis actually generates money. you know, our biggest online data that i remember was when sarah palin accepted the nomination for vp. in some ways we were getting for hillary clinton even when it's the women go. i think the clinton coalition really didn't come in. it wasn't criminally clinton, but the clinton coalition came

in on the day palin announced a thing from the money. it's people can rally around your candidate and everything begins with a belief in your candidate. so i can't say what it's like for other candidates. but we had some days where there were some pretty tough days and people rallied and it didn't go the other way. and frankly they were just sunday's coming in now, this kind this kind of slowed down and people got nervous. but i don't think in our case we have a lot of those big swings. they do say -- there is a scene that candidates never get out of the race. you see candidates to stay on after they've had a bad moment and just keep going when they're going to get out. there is a kind of saying that a candidate doesn't get out until the donors say, which is when the money stops. into your other question quickly, tell me again, i'm sorry. go ahead and tell me again. i apologize.

>> this'll be the last question. is that okay? >> my question is, how do you choose the words for campaign? to use a demographic? you interview people? when choosing those words, do you actually choose words that are going to go to a discredit to make the opponent look bad? or are you choosing that are going to make your candidate at his best for her vast? i mean, how does that all work can? >> look, so i wasn't the wordsmith. but let me just tell you what i think is really -- that is in play that kind of gets to your question. i think there were three principles to work on the campaign trail that are my favorite, that i think by the way for students who should pay attention to this, because these will be helpful to you as your go into your own career.

the first is to find itself lest you be defined. this gets to your, how you define yourself and i think it gets to authenticity. and i always like to save the job of the campaign to define your candidate into defined theirs, too. so there is that going on. the second principle i think is to work towards building a base, which again gets to credibility. you have to have a base of support. we really made iowa are based. i think maybe giuliana try to make florida his base. so you need to have credibility. it might be with the constituency. and maybe with the geography, whatever that is, it gets to the issue of credibility. third is mind your ceo of mass. in all this gets to appoint that i want to make, just my own opinion about maybe 2008.

our cannaday was pretty much defined as hope and change in 2008. and he had -- you know, he had built his credibility, his position of leadership at the people. going to come back to that. the third thing was i think people thought that he was a steady leader. when i look back on john mccain, i think he might've had trouble defining himself. and i think at one point he was the experienced candidate come experienced war hero and then he kind of slipped back and he was going back from experience appellant in our candidate without being inexperienced. but then, you know, he picked sarah palin, which was clearly the choice, so we had this kind of thing going on here. then you get to credibility.

when the market collapse, people thought this favorite our candidate because he was better on the economy. but i actually think to change the election into an election about leadership, and now is where people voted for barack obama. they voted on his leadership and not who would better manage the economy. if you saw john mccain and not moment, he suspended his campaign. he went to washington insider candidate should come within. went back to the campaign trail, was going to be the debate. there's a lot of lurching going on with john mccain at that point. our candidate number one from the campaign trail. he stayed for a midair. he positioned his leadership of the people, with the neighborhoods. john mccain was the voice echoing from the halls of washington. that was the contrast of favorite our candidate. and then to the last point i want to make, which is mind your ceo makes. when john mccain, for example,

said i'm going to -- we should put the debate and focus on the bill. our cannadaycannaday's response was less than come i can run a campaign. i can do the debate. i can do more than this. i've got an organization that can handle a lot. i'll be ready for the debate. there is a sense that barack obama was a leader in these moments, too. so i think all of these things are in play on the campaign trail. people i think are really evaluating, you know, there is this definition war that is going on and there is a credibility battle going on and there is a sense that which one is going to be the bettors eeo. and all of these work together and play off of each other and they've got to come together in order to make sense for voters or voters start making evaluations. i think i'm going to leave it at that. thanks. have a great time tonight.

[applause] >> this is my fifth book, but my first where there is a sustained storyline running through it. it is a true story of basically 10 days in london in 1854. and it is a story of an incredibly terrifying outbreak that took place during this period, an outbreak of cholera. and in fact, the first half of the book is really quite sobering and frightening in some ways as the outbreak devastates this neighborhood in the western

edge of soho. but it also turns into being actually much more optimistic story because the events of this little stretch of time turn out to be central to solving the riddle of where the cholera was coming from and then ultimately setting up a series of public health initiatives and other strategies for basically eliminating cholera as a threat from london and from other cities around the world. >> on the day, the fourth, fifth, sixa i can recall after being in office, were sitting in the oval office and larry summers konishiki economic ties are said mr. pasternak, looking at this years budget, you are

going to have a chilling valley sabbathday. he said i haven't done anything yet. >> we cannot keep looking our children in the eye, knowing we're going to give them a diminished future because we are spending their money today. it is a very simple idea. mitt romney in iowa permit to washington. we've got to stop spending money we don't have. we must cut spending. we must get this balanced budget. we must get this debt under control.

>> c-span gives a really great inside look into what is happening in washington. so whenever that happens, you're surprised what comes back to you and kind of changes your view because it's different than regular media because it's very effective and it shows a lot of what is real and what's going on. i watch hearings on c-span and when senate and house both on different bills, we watch from the office. and also, when the supreme court has hearings, we watch different decisions and opinions of c-span.

>> at their annual conference, the religion news writers association hosted a discussion about the first amendment and religious freedom. panelists from the aclu, conference of catholic airships, the museum's first amendment center looked at religion in schools, same-sex marriage and the contraception mandate in the new health care law. >> is the song? okay. hello, everybody, welcome. i'm michelle. so, let's get started. covering religion in america means writing about tensions about religious freedom. what does that mean? how far does it go? and who gets it. when i started this nearly eight years ago, i was talking about stephen's book on religious literacy and how to legally break religion more into public schools. the last couple years we have all written a bit about divisions over islam and measures are in the country to limit the use of sharia law and

offers to stop mosques from being built. in the past year, we have all reported on the standoff between the american catholic bishops in the white house over the new health care laws mandate for employers to these access to contraception in differing views over whether that violates religious liberty. every advance of legal protections for same-sex couples violates religious freedom tensions with religious traditionalists. as we were organizing this, every week seems to bring new fodder for the panel. we seem to get the topics i would come out. is there any point when a video critical of another faith goes over the line from expression to incitement. and how professionals to impose male circumcision have influence on public policy? can polygamists use protections given same-sex couples to argue religious discrimination in court. did the chick filet brouhahas the limits on the religious freedom of a restaurant chain order or instead on the gl bt

employees of the chain? and we haven't even gotten to holiday long season controversy, the controversy season for that. so what we really want out of the panel was to find new ways to write about the subject much more deeply and in ways that break news and tell people about legal trends, cultural trends in people and ideas our readers should know about. we have some of the best people to help us through this today. direct which in my lap anthony pascarella, associate general secretary general counsel for the united states catholic bishops. he oversees the policy and advocacy work of the usc cb in the three officers served as in-house counsel. he also spent several years at the becket fund and handled many religious cases they are. to his left is charles haynes, a senior scholar at the first amendment center in direct serve the religious freedom education

project at the museum. he writes and speaks extensively on religious liberty and religion in american public life. at the end of the table is dan mack, director of the aclu's program, freedom of religion and belief. he evades a wide range of religious liberty litigation, advocacy and efforts nationwide. prior to his work, he was a partner in the up says first amendment law. so what i'm going to do is try to keep this kind of a conversation. so i'll just ask a general question in each of you can answer it and respond to each other as well. with so much we want to cover. first, blistery general historical perspective. how does the state of religious freedom, but which i mean the ability of all americans to their faith compare to say 20 or 50 or 100 years ago? where are we today? maybe we could start at the end of the table and were closer to

me. >> first, thanks for having us all here. we appreciate this opportunity. i've spoken to many of you many times in the past. as for the historical perspective, first i just want to say one thing about the terms religious freedom. it is often enhanced to describe the right of religious exercise and expression and i think it is a vital component of religious freedom and liberty. there is a component that works hand-in-hand with the other and that is a separation of church and state. the protection against government sponsorship and promotion of religion, which is a vital component of religious liberty. i will just say a few words about where we are today and where we used to be.

they are important right next to each other. as for the separation of church and state, the protection against government sponsorship of religion there was little and today it is far more robust, but absent flows and a lot of that depends on the current competition and chemistry of the supreme court and the rest of the federal court in state courts as well. but a while back there was virtually none. i think there is a great deal more of that protection today. it is very much in jeopardy. on the free exercise side, it is never been particularly robust in this country, unfortunately.

and i think it is very fortunate. today it is a mixed bag. in 1990, the supreme court severely limited the constitutional protection for free exercise in the way that i think probably all of us at this table think was wrong. and since then, there have been legislative efforts to correct the problem. what the court said back in 1990 as essentially, if your faith is burdened by a lot of that is not targeting religion, so that neutral and generally applicable, basically you are out of luck. you are forced to comply regardless. and many groups from across the political spectrum and many groups from across the political spectrum and many groups from across the political spectrum religious exercise and protections for the political spectrum religious exercise and protections for the expression and warship up to the political process as sometimes works and

sometimes doesn't. >> if you could name the case. >> that is the smith case in 1990. >> many groups have worked to give more robust there have been a number of successful efforts to do so but that the federal and state level. i think the protections for religious liberty. they're not where we want them to be. religious minorities have always had it the worst and were giving a historical perspective. recently every state somewhere or the other in this country has had it bad and originally

catholics, jewish, mormons, jehovah's witnesses. and today i think the problem is exemplified in the rights of muslims in america which is one of our greatest religious liberty challenges. >> that's a very good overview from dan kennesaw just try to fill in for my perspective some of the things you might want to think about a hundred years ago plus, we are semi-established protestant nation so for much of the 1970s, when protestants gave up the state establishment, they didn't think they were giving up their country. so for much of the 19th century it was protestant hegemony and schools and so forth. and don't forget, the first amendment didn't apply to the states. so we didn't have first amendment cases and publics goes

in the 19th century and into the 20th century because the first amendment didn't apply. the state constitution states, and many places they could impose a protestant school and they did. and of course a lot of this was motivated by fear of catholicism , that history you know in the nativist history. so that's very difficult. a hundred years ago we were coming out of that time we were in a second disestablishment some historians call it, which is very important because in the 20th century we did go through a time, where we finally began to think about living up to the first amendment principles of no establishment, free exercise in new ways. and of course the supreme court of the 20 century began to apply the first amendment through the 14th amendment. so explicitly by the 1940s can the first amendment did indeed apply to all levels of government, beginning with the

case capital case in 1841 and ampersand and 48 by any fashion that bus to everybody. the second establishment was driven by religious diversity in the growth of religious diversity in the united states but we were diverse in the beginning among protestants are not counted for early protestant, semi-establishment we talked about was a great achievement across many differences. but then the diversity exploded and tinuing to expand in the united states. and so, madison got it right in the first place when he argued and defend the constitution. i'm paraphrasing slightly the multiplicity of sects not. the more protection is going to be for the religious freedom of everybody.

whatever the legal framework is. the second disestablishment really did change things. now on the establishment side, just to add to what dan said, 50, 60 years ago, you know, when the first amendment began to be applied to the states, it was applied to create to use the jefferson odeon medicare a high wall of separation. the wall has been lowered or holes been put through. it's a mesh of accommodation is supreme court on establishment issues that i was 60 years ago when i had much of a strict separation of establishment. depending how do the religious liberty and whether you think no establishment is a core principle of religious liberty. you could say we are better off

or worse off. i agree that free exercise we are worse off. i will still say i think we are still the boldest and most successful experiment in freedom of conscience or religious liberty in the world has ever seen. i think it is in trouble in the united states. if it goes badly decided. i think there's a lot of barriers now for religious groups there are laws and regulations and icing that's a violation of conscious and a serious problem for going to have to deal with. the last thing i would say about the state of where we are today as opposed to 50 years ago, 100 years ago in store for things to say this, and all periods of our

history, the vitality of religious freedoms is a great deal in the minds and hearts of the american people. so we can talk about the legal system and the supreme court. it's all very important. it's very important, but on the ground in local communities and many of your communities, the vitality of religious freedom depends on the attitudes of the people in those communities, particularly where there is one hanging a large majority. you know this course. groups in the minority, hatches if you will, in some areas of the country, sufferer. whether it is the one church in the northern alabama who complains about something in the school and is vilified and has to finally leave the county or whether it's the muslims trying to build in oscar and a community that doesn't want it or whatever it is, much depends on how people see it. the government may be doing fine. in many disputes involving muslims the government is doing well in terms of defending the

rights. it's the attitudes of local communities that make life difficult for people in our work places, in their schools, in their homes and i think that's what we have to worry about. one of things when you talk about vitality of religion in the united states. i'm going to be super boring and agree with my colleagues. we will build on something especially the charles said. at a different point in history there have been different religious faiths that have been especially disfavored at that period of time. and i agree that my sons and seeks or often mystique they are targeted especially widely. they keep a snapshot in time.

this is building on what charles was saying about how the culture is so very important as it relates to these religious freedoms. it is to say everybody is a minority someone. if you are mormon, you're not a minority in utah. but the rest of the country you are a minority. that is just one example, but you can extrapolate where there's some who by sheer force of numbers are less often fear places and times. if you take a contemporaneous snapshot, there is always some minority status for your faith whatever it may be an added term underscores the importance because it is the principal problem in the lemonade and protections. if you have religious freedom problem, bush or elected officials, legislature, city, what have you.

it's all well and good unless we are capable michelle asked us to keep our eye spilled for ideas because when thinking about this in the came back its not 50 years, the issue have plenty of time to repair. so 1965 was right now you may have been hearing about the commencement of the come the 50th anniversary of the commencement of it. the last was stigmatized in monaco which is basically the sort of monumental and the religious freedom that is the inherent dignity of each and every person in there for the universal human right is not just about the rights of catholic individuals.

it's not just about the rights of the catholic faith or its institutions. it's about the right of each and every human being to search for the truth, discern the truth come out here the truth once they find it. that is an element of catholic teaching that is insufficiently well known, even among catholics. i think bishops now recognize that and try to make catholics know more about that teaching. and it's coming up on 50 years. so i think there's going to be a lot of introspective retrospection surrounding the anniversary and i encourage you to consider that in the next couple years leading up. >> two things to me are quite clear pier one is that on paper we are all in this country living on the same religious liberty protection and in practice, that's not always the case. now, i think that the growing

religious diversity in this country, and it is growing very rapidly will help on that score, i'm making things in practice on the ground, even not a little bit more. i think there's time and there will be bumps in the road here but as i referred to earlier, there is religious groups, virtually all of this country that has been in the minority at one point or in one location and although today there is still a fair amount of religious discrimination out there, i think towards certain groups, that has reduced dramatically. i think the growing diversity of faith and belief, and i want to include nonbelievers, freethinkers as well in this. i think will force us all to confront what these religious liberty protections really mean. that is both protections for free exercise than those that

prohibit government establishment of religion. just to illustrate that a little more, when there is less religious diversity, i think it is easier for folks to sag, we are all free to believe and worship express our faith. we the majority through our government over others. that's no problem and that is now in addition and that's a clear violation where i'll forced to have confront in a way that wasn't the case 20 or 30 years ago, certain not 50 or 100 years ago. there was a case in the 90s involving a town, for those interested that had a large jewish population and there was

a null being of the local governments of judaism in a lot of ways that the supreme court ultimately ruled unconstitutional. that is sent to you just wouldn't have seen 50 years earlier and that is true. it is perhaps the most vilified faith in certain circles. the mere recognition will help us return to our principles of religious liberty. if there is a charter school that was promoting islam. charter schools are for purposes of the law. there was a lawsuit brought they are in challenging that.

so too does the establishment clause and separation of church and state. so when we see these pockets of minority faiths gaining more political control, i think that's great, but it will also remind us that government should never be favoring any religion and we can't just fall back on whenever the majority faces. that's fine. >> just one example that might be helpful of how this works well in my opinion. 50 years ago the school prayer decisions decided to 50th anniversary or that decision. they are religious liberty airplane out and for all faiths and no faith. some people say that's a time when god was kicked out of the schools and we don't have this government favored religion.

we don't have the position of some value generally historically protestant bias in our schools and so forth will fall apart. the sense ingold d. vitali, we've had ups and downs. but today, there is more student religion and at least 100 years. and the irony is a decision supposedly kicked god out of the schools, open the door for a first amendment or, mostly. and i think that is very instructive. people keep insisting imposing religion. and unless they visit public schools, there's a lot more. it's because of this prayer

decision that there is. it's not in spite of it. it's because of it. it began to level the playing field the first amendment was going to keep out of public schools. believers, nonbelievers of every stripe. we are finally beginning to live up to that arrangement in the united states. we are going well in speed, so try not to linger too long on any of these questions. but in terms of schools, and we do have as you say people who say, you know, there's people arguing opposite. is there a story that you wish that you would see about schools today, but religion in schools? you were mentioning the case

about -- you said there was a case about a charter school in the muslim community. he had an explosion of parochial schools and a charter school next year. is there one interesting story you wish to redo, student expression. >> i will turn from boring to provocative banana bios. there was parental choice in education and now is on the march, mostly in state legislatures. one of the reasons for that is its acquired crossover appeal, less of a partisan issue. it's become a religion specific issue.

it's a catholic specific issue. essentially it no longer is a super pitch battle about vouchers and one or two places, particularly in court. battles all over the country about bashes vouchers, the tax credit, but not just catholic schools, but other kinds of religious schools and proliferation of different schools and also charter schools have variation intensive public schools because charter schools are indeed public schools. but that element, i think, gives rise -- i think that's the overall trend that i should be kept on. there is another trend come you have that upward line. the money down the line of special concern to me into the church that i work for. and that is the decline of catholic schools in urban centers, basically as catholics moved more to suburbs.

a trend going on for a long time. the massive structure earlier in the century as being, i do want to say abandoned, but deluded as catholics. those institutions have now, what are they call it, for 20 years or so have been hanging in the in order to serve the broader community, not just the catholic students. that is becoming economically more and more difficult and i think parental choice in education is one of the things that can help arrest the trend. see that again this one trend of the movement for parental choice in a downward trend of disappearing catholic schools in urban centers. it is my hope that the first one kind of catch the sector one. those are not just particular stories, the trend lines. >> are there any statistics? you're talking about the percentage of catholics and

catholic schools >> i do know this is an increasingly big and the cray says of catholic schools in urban centers that has no fewer catholics to populate them in their attendance goes over some cases to become charter schools, kind of handover the keys to the public school system. so i don't have it in front of me, but i know that it has been fretted about and studied, and you know, they're respectable and issuing studies out there. >> i think on the schools issue you have kind of, there is this explosion of parochial schools and you also have an economy for those people are in public schools. i think those things affect each other. you know, people are interested in ways that continue to promote

and practice and communicate about their ideals in a public school contacts. i don't know faster. just seems that there's a proliferation of parochial schools, virtuoso at the same time have these battles about expression in public schools and charter schools centered on a particular faith. >> is anthony was talking about, and washington d.c. comic that number, 11 in d.c. or something, capitals become charter schools. one of the questions there is how do you do that quite fatty transition from a catholic school to public school and retain your identity? can you? what are the first amendment problems with that transition? >> imagistic quickly about that because obviously the catholic school system is a massive system of the issue is primarily the cities because with catholics moving to suburbs, you have a new catholic school, not at the same rate at the employment cost issue.

it's more than disappearing in the cities. they are being built in other parts of the country, right? already. >> well, to what to talk about the voucher issue? >> well, i just want to underscore a couple things. >> try to mix it up here, dave. >> we oppose vouchers. >> at a few things when i saw to reporters in issues, i think one of the complexities in the school setting, there are two clusters. one is the questions a student's religious expression. the students express themselves religiously for a captive audience, we generally agree students have the right to express their faith in a public school in various ways. they can pray alone or in groups to gather on the flagpole, it we have those agreements. but this captive audience question is really a kind of a

quagmire. and so, sorting that out would be helpful for people because the member states of course that pass legislation to put in place for some people think is where we are in the law. i think even that is in dispute. as you turn the podium over to a student and don't review their speech or tell them what to speak and they were chosen by a neutral criteria and they have control of the mike as a word that event, they can say something religious and that student speech, not school speech. so to get to that model, which some people is where the law is is not really where the plot is at the supreme court level in the 11th circuit may be as they are. but where the u.s. department of education guidelines are. that is all confusing to people. when can administrators draw the line in the settings? went candidate? some legislators have tried to have an successfully passed legislation in texas and elsewhere to try to get schools to put that model in place,

hoping to write students put the microphone and a built-in safeguards and those kinds of people chosen trying to set it up to get the right speech. the idea is kind of ironic. they get their religious speech i would say. so that is one cluster of issues to think about his sword out to people because it's complicated for people to understand where that line is drawn. the other has to do with bible courses but there's a lot of bible courses and know it's really focused on it. and states pass laws to encourage bible courses. but these laws are not changing anything much to whether schools may have bible electives.

they can do that before the law. what they are doing is trying to encourage and offer state support for those local districts who want to do these bible courses. there's nothing wrong with an academic course in the bible in a public school if it's done right. we did guidelines a number of years ago to outline consensus guidelines, to outline how that should be done. a lot of these sources get in under the radar. some materials by one group in particular goes around the country trying to get some of the materials in there that are really unconstitutional. that is a continuing issue in many local communities that is not often looked at and should be spotted. >> i guess i should throw in a word or two about vouchers. so we do oppose them. on the legal front in the course of the supreme court is set under the federal constitution, they are permissible. so the battle in the courts now is in the states, using state

funds and state constitutions, which in many instances are more good as the antiestablishment print as the antiestablishment print as the antiestablishment print then federal constitution. outside of the legal context, there's a lot of policy questions that are quite interesting. there's the question of worship taxpayer dollars be going? what about public schools, and what standards will govern schools funded by taxpayer funds are voucher systems. as a whole of issues. i didn't mean to suggest that it's not worth government. i just want to clarify. we do a fair amount of work on behalf of student free exercise. we have opposed bursary bans that popped up in texas, nebraska, colorado. they often come out because schools say they are concerned in gene activity and they say

roser is there such in asia. so we have spoken out those. we have represented students of minority faiths, native american students who were hairy mom raise and he has told in texas that he could not do that. so we've done that. we've spoken out and work on behalf of students who want to sing religious song for new jersey awesome god in a talent show and she told her she couldn't. in michigander was a student who was told we couldn't put a bible verse on this page in the yearbook. you know how students have their own personal pages and so we work on that as well. a problem that is being underreported and one of our biggest priorities is the fact that the rules, on the march in

the rules by not be that clear. can school administrators, teachers, principals, can a school officially endorse or embrace one's faith. those have been clearer for half a decade. there are rampant in repeated abuses and we get complaints about these things and one of the problems is that it's difficult for folks to come forward. they feel they will be ostracized, they will be attacked in their community. and you can do so in file lawsuits if you feared these repercussions. they fare out the actual identities. some of these small communities whose speaking out on behalf of the establishment clause.

this is something they've made a birdie, so one of the things we've done recently is launching new campaign at the start of the school year in south carolina. religious freedom goes to school and the ideas we have sent letters to all school districts in south carolina and it's not been quantified. we want to get a handle on the defense of the problem. periodically something will hit local or national press. there's an interesting story about a teacher in ohio. what she think is lost is the extent this problem is how often it happens and the harm that is truly felt by the students and their families. when they don't share the majority faith.

so one of the reasons we focused on south carolina is we had a case they are in chesterfield county where there was a whole host of abuses among them. there was one day where the school invited some local ministers and the school's stated intent and purpose as many kids and if you go to school suspension. we represented a student and his family. when the father complains, you go by the principles he needs to get right with god. lucky for us, the christian rapper actually recorded it all and put it up on youtube, so the proof is not as difficult in that case as it often is.

it is a springboard to look statewide. we look at these nationwide issues come over right now we have this focus there. that is an issue that needs to be addressed by as and more generally. >> just to let you know we are going to start taking questions in about five to seven minutes. >> in case there is someone here come i mention these guidelines. over the last 20 years there is common ground agreements which has made a big difference. there is areas of the country he mentioned a couple of those cases that violate the rights of religious students and so forth. the consensus guidelines of evangelicals are christian legal society camino, the american

jewish congress, school boards associations, so for his. the wide range of groups supported -- >> sorry to interrupt you. maybe people can ask you, but religious freedom education.org is the easiest place to find them and they are all collect and finding common ground and are also individually close to tearing being downloaded is that they are bible guides, student expression. that would be a place to start in terms of where we are in the consensus. >> a lot of the disputes about religious freedom seem these days to come down to tensions about traditional merit. if you had to create a compromise for that, what would it be? is there something you could state quickly? that something behind a lot of disputes. is there a way to say here is the solution to that.

anthony? >> well, here's the thing. it is underappreciated to marriage permeates the law including areas of the law within religious institutions operate. , what have you that consider and the benefits they provide. those are so, those laws provide for distinct and preferential benefits for people who have good state of legal so you get to the point that the definition of who gets those benefits is changed as the civil political matter and changed in a way that the religious institution can go along with.

it's not supported. if you're looking for were the conflicts can be, which you should do is look at where it is and the legal definition of marriage governs religious institutions and that's in a lot of places. that's going to come up in a lot of places. but the fullness of that will not come for some time and that is actually a big part of the reason why to craft exemptions. if you try to do retail exemptions, it will be chaos. wholesale exemptions are possible in some states that a democratic process of some kind or another they have had some limited religious freedom attractions.

some of them i think are empty and symbolic. the religious ceremonies. but of course you're not. we've never really hurt too much demand for that in any event. we worried about the government institutions with this definition of marriage will be applied to them. so, there are a couple of again come you might save retail sized carveouts in some of those states that have passed those kinds of laws. so you new york as an example, connecticut, new hampshire and so forth in variation among rhode island for its laws and so forth. but those will be partial solutions and they will still leave things unprotected. it is just hard to craft a compromise in the problem. >> just a mixture and her stand you, you don't think there isn't

a solution? inside sunday were just going to be -- >> i don't think there's one comprehensive. there's also lucian's available, but there is also somebody just on the house side of that protection and you'll have fewer disputes, but i don't think you're really going to track them all down. >> so where will we be on my? >> that's the short answer, but i think sometimes suggestion of alarmism in this concern, if you think about the logic of it, the legal definition affects rights. and it affects rights including months, including religious institutions that can't go along with that and conscience. that is the locus of the conflict described broadly.

because there are too many states that have it because there were these limited exemptions that exists now it has for a tactical reason doesn't make sense if you are a gay rights activist you picked up favorite now. enough to validate the concern, but it's not -- we haven't seen anything yet is the short of it. >> shortcoming outcome of the short answer to the question, is there an easy compromise on the horizon? no. i do think religious liberty objections have to be taken into account certainly, but wherever we end up and there's different ways is what sort of rights to religious exemptions should they be in the context of same-sex

marriage. i think the answer to that question should be the same regardless of the types of marriage that is being objected to. the horror story to examples of interracial marriage and interfaith marriage throughout history, there have been portions of population and interfaith and others as well. those were very sincere. i doubt that the objections today by religious folks are very sincere. but i think the answer to the two questions has to be the same. and whenever the extent of the combination, i think we have to keep in mind the implications. >> well, my favorite answer of this for many years to get the

government out of the marriage business. nobody is picking up on that. jonathan also wrote about that, so there's two of us anyway. i think when you get the government involved in these matters is very difficult to find a way to satisfy people and sometimes it's just ridiculous that the use of the word marriage for some people. so i don't think that's going to happen. clergy are state officials when it comes to marriage. i don't think were going to get the government out of marriages. but whatever you call it, civil marriage is different or religious marriage and i think that is going to be more and more seen as distinct. it is going to be inevitable in the united states across the country.

so i think the real question is how much battling do we do to keep that from happening. religious people who feel grounds of conscience as opposed to same-sex marriage is to really work now to find the best way to protect the religious freedom in interest as the country moves in this direction. and i think that there's motive. both sides should be motivated to come to the table and find ways to do that. on the gay right side of courses anthony suggests doesn't advance the cause to pick a fight right now over religious freedom. their son that have gone further. we should be for religious freedom and say this is an important principle ever going to work to protect as we were to advance our rights in the marriage arena.

both sides azeris what is the country, with different states an arrangement should be motivated to work out the best protection for religious conscience that we can protect without compromising its a bigger conversation as to what it look like. but i think this is the time to do it. >> at enough people want to answer questions, think they need to, to the microphone in the middle. >> first of all, thank you. informative and interesting panel. add a question about some thing mr. haynes said. if i misunderstanding this, please correct me. the 14th amendment is after the civil war, but it sounds

like you are saying that the court did not actually start applying not until around the time of world war ii. >> 1947. the 14th amendment was applied. so the supreme court began that in the 1920s and by the 1940s it was incorporated so no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law. rightly or wrongly some people disagree about the history of the world liberty includes fundamental liberties of the first amendment. they should not think the establishment clause is included. he would not apply the establishment clause to the state. i think he's the only current

justice that believes this. it's been said about for some time to put the liberty and the 14th amendment is how we get the first amendment to apply to the states, through the 14th amendment. >> is religiously diverse country on earth and it seems people are ignorant that's not their own. at least that's my experience having lived abroad, especially in europe. i am wondering if this establishment has a role in this and if there's any way of requiring the teaching not only of the bible, but other scriptures, for example, the koran in schools and from the perspective and how jewish senior. >> charles is referring to precisely that.

as you pointed out, that had he just establishment and it eliminated the teaching of public schools, but also made clear there is room within constitutional parameters for the more, shall we say, detached non-devotional study and other religious scriptures and teachings. you might say on an informational basis opposed to spiritual formation bases. so as to whether that's acquired, to let it fall two different jurisdiction in their curriculum. a good step in the references. which curricula of them are vague using? >> we are all doing it. 20 years ago textbooks in the curriculum are largely silent

about religion, but thanks to a lot of changes, the guidelines have talked about, in the standards in all the state standards and number of years ago, we found religion is treated there. it is still superficial, so the religious letter he problem it is not yet resolved. i was at a conference we all agree it's a serious issue for going to live with their differences in this country, we've got to know more about one another. if we don't teach young people about their neighbors, we're not going to be able to the fall together in the future and much intolerance and hate is grounded. there's only one course in

united states are public school that i know about and i would know if there's any more. that's in modesto, california. i helped get them going after conflict they have, but they have done really well. all ninth graders take world religion there for a semester and been fine. the religious community supported modesto, which is a conservative area of the country, but there's many a lack is now proliferating. fairfax county has sincere love in montgomery county. maryland has quite a few. they are kind of the exception. not many districts have a lot of electives. as i said, bible courses proliferated not all of them good, but the core curriculum where we need more national inclusion is a tougher nut to crack because of time constraints, all the issues of concern about teachers not been prepared to teach much about religion. so is across the curriculum including more a part of a

society. so we've come a long way in 20 years. we've gotten here, but we still have a lot more work to do. >> if we go for the next question, do you want to add to that quickly? >> i do you think the establishment clause has been the cause of this. there is a religious lederle problem. the establishing and it has helped. it will be worse if they weren't the case. solutions is a question. americans are lack of literacy, religion being one of them. >> can you just identify? >> by mike mcmanus, i rated syndicated column. mr. haynes said same-sex marriage in the united states. we've had 32 states voted down.

so where the real ballot matters and people go to vote, it doesn't hinge on religious freedom. in new hampshire, a bed and breakfast run by a catholic couple of reviews to allow a couple to have a wedding reception at the facility where it's not an objection by another bed and breakfasts. they decided to sue and they won their suit and this couple had to pay $30,000 in fines and they were told they had to open their facilities to allow marriages, whether they liked it or not. so they decided no more wedding recessions. i don't know how you can say that's a religious freedom. >> is anthony suggested. >> it's inevitable. that's what's going to happen. that's a different point.

but whether it's inevitable or not, religious freedom has to be taught about in this battle and who wins and who loses i'm not a prophet. i'm just subjects deemed that demographics suggest that i'm right. inevitably when the younger generation comes along who have a very different view of this than current voters do, it is going to change i think. so i think this is inevitable in our country, but even if it is an inevitable, i don't disagree that this is certainly a challenge on religious freedom grounds. i think the issue is how do we help protect as much as we can without however with the rights of people with the right to be treated with the same dignity

and respect of other people. >> david gibson of religion news service. thanks for a match for this panel. i am very struck by how you all seeing and the same hymn book -- and say, sports metaphors of her company. in terms of the principles of religious freedom in it you can find yourselves on opposite sides of the debate are things like that when it comes to the application. there's always a sense of religious freedom. people who agree on it can be complete adversaries that comes to the application of that, i'd be interested if you could comment on that so we can kind of understand that, then maybe get into the weeds as well. we've expressed those religion writers is the hhs, contraception mandate. if you could be prophets, what is going to happen and not -- in

the court cases that are inevitably coming out of the mandate already if it stands, if the obama administration doesn't change it. the definition of religious institutions. but it's also the so-called taco bell issue of individual conscience of business owners. what is going to happen in the courts in your respect the views? thank you very much. >> you have right now more than 30 cases and 80 planus. if the issue doesn't go away for other reasons in the case ends up in front of the supreme court. you have enough proliferation of cases and enough variety and the outcomes to split the issue is officially great importance. it's not going to be this coming term, probably won't be the term

after. it will be the certainly the term after that. my own prediction is part of the reason they will win once the merits are reached. they will probably win because i think courts are more inclined to reach the statutory question first and not get into additional questions. ..

create an interim step in going up and down to the court. that is probably going to get resolved between now and august 1st of 2013. the administrative process will be done and the courts will invariably go straight to the merit. you'll start getting merit decisions uniformly by the end of next year. >> does it depend on whether or not what the administration does and who wins all of that? >> not really. in other words, what the administration has put in to play by vir chow of the regulatory process a limited piece of the entire problem. and also that the constraint they put upon themselves in addressing the limited issue

indicates that there's not going to be much of any relief in the -- for the people that sued. they are reading the writing on the wall or seeing the writing in the federal register. they see there's some kind of accommodation for somebody. it won't be me. they go to court right away. >> i'd like to just briefly weigh in. >> we have four minutes left on the entire thing. let's see if we can do it quick and move to another question. >> understood. my prediction is the opposite. i think that ultimately these regulations will be upheld and one of the reasons is religious liberty is vitally important. we recognize that the court recognized it. it is not absolute i it doesn't give you the right to harm others or impose your faith on others. and as you mention there had, two sets speaking of plaintiff

in the case. religionly affiliated constitution and they are the cases brought for profit individuals. trait ones who are going to be addressed by the accommodation anthony referred to. it's going to be a question whether or not it goes far them for them. i think there is a dangerous slippery slope for you allow for-profit business to enter the stream of commerce to get out of regulation they don't like. that will open the door to all sorts of exceptions for for-profit businesses to labor laws, other antidiscrimination laws, that i think the courts will not be inclined to go that far. >> thank you. >> and kristin sheller from urban -- you talked about religious in schools.

i wonder if you have opinions on new york city school ban that deals with off hours churches and other religious groups meeting in the schools for worship. >> i'm against it. >> i am too. and i can't understand it. i think it's bizarre to me, just a personal comment for me that new york dug the heels in -- and trying to even focus to worship. it's not talking about religion and just keeps on going. and i should have thought they would have given up on that a long time ago. i think it's a very bad idea to new york policy as a very bad idea. >> i think they have the constitutional authority to do that. i think there's room for play in the joints where the governments can ability to avoid establishment cause problems. i think that's what they did there. >> the last question.

>> well, david a question on the healthy mandate covered mine. i'll ask a followup. new york is a did ?rot any religious representativation at the tenth anniversary of the september 11th memorial service. are we getting to a point -- that the only way to accommodate everyone is to be silent and have no religious in the public square? >> i should hope not. i hope that the response to the diversity is let a thousand flowers bloom than to spray round up on them. >> i think -- i hope not. i don't think that's actually happening at all. i think we have to be careful not to conflate when the public square is with what the government is doing. i think religion is alive and well, and religious exsuppression live and well in the public square. i think it's appropriate for governments to be careful not to align themselves with one faith

or another. i would agree with that. one of the thing west didn't mention much which is the free exercise challenge in the country today to religious freedom challenge. not is the anti-muslim@, and so i want to make sure that i promote with rehaving a press conference next thursday at the national press club at out 30. i hope some of you will be able to attend or follow this. and we're going release what is the truth about american muslims. questions and answers. and it's supported by

stond. an and sigh here is the more accurate information than what you're getting. not only about religious freedom for all people including american muslims about some of the things that have been characterized as a islam that are just simply wrong. >> okay. thank you very much. thank you all verying. being on the panel. [applause] >> thank you. [applause] dismissed allegation of some mitt romney sporters of the democratic bias in recent

polls. he presented predebate number on the race in battleground states as well as public opinion poll oong range of issues. [inaudible conversations] employees welcome andrew with the knights of columbus. [applause] thankthank you very much. we have the codirector of the substitute for public opinion. the substitute was founded in 1978 within and does research on elections and public policy issues. you probably know -- the election cycle, and they have been working with the knights columbus since 2008 on a variety of moral and religious issue poll weeing have done over the

years. so we're very pleased to have with us lee -- about the election and also about the context of some of the moral and religious issues that were underconsideration. without firth further ado. lee. [applause] [applause] thank you very much. thank you , your honor for the news writer association convention for inviting us. and welcome to the audience watching us at home and work. on v span. we right now half way between the home of the baltimore and the washington nationals. i give you greetings from new york within the land of the 27 championships. [laughter] thank you very much. that was market tested in new york and did better, you know,

but i think it will be the most strongest partisan comment i'll make. we're partnering to poll the nine beablghts ground states and the news service on -- the partnership with the nights of columbus dates to 2008 and during that time, we have conducted many surveys which have tried to get beyond the labels and the page one headlines. i'd like begin today with the ever changing overview of the presidential campaign which will hopefully set the context for barbara's discussion on the poll work and values. there's one word to characterize the election, it's polarization as we look at the looking at the map of the country looking a

decision between the red states and blue states base on prior election and current polling. the map is dwoided in to the blue which current calculations is roughly 237 elect rate votes. having obama's way and the configuration points to a romney total of 191. more on that in a second. we have done several round of polls since the convention before the week's debate. looking aing these highly competitive nine states in partnerships policy with the nbc news and "the wall street journal." let me show you numerically where the recent polls, i emphasis the predebate numbers are showing obama is numerically ahead in each of the nine battleground states, in florida, virginia, north carolina, and nevada romney is well within a striking distance on each of those. we will shortly be revisiting

florida and virginia and ohio to see what impact the debate may have had. these nine states are states that obama carried all of which in 2008. he's close 0 to or above 50% in each of them. if you look at the numbers, to some degree reflecting the approval rating and the general improvement in the right destruction, wrong direction numbers that have occurred over the last several months. the president has enjoyed a unfavorable positive rating in each state. romney's likability score has been more mixed. and with the exception of virginia, north carolina, and florida, his strongest three states, his likability has been upside down. it may have changed. we're going to be clear in the mexico round of polls interested to sew if the debate has in fact reset that campaign in terms of these numbers. now you heard a lot about the

pathways. that was -- [inaudible] pathways to the 270 electoral votes and how president obama probably has more pathways to that or easier aways of putting that together because it built an advantage in the blue state/red state differences than romney has. let me make a couple of points on this. i'll give you a sense of what it is. start with the obama 237 and you add florida had is 29, he's at 266. and would need any one of the other states to get to 270. if you start again with the 237, and you give romney ohio but you dr you give romney florida but obama ohio. he's at 2 a and obama would need two other states as long as one of them isn't new hampshire in

this case. new hampshire has only four e lekial votes. now i'll comment on this. these states are pretty much all very close. and although the campaigns target one state against each other and the odds are targeted to the states. if there's a universal shift, they all could move three or four point appellants e lock -- can move in romney's destruction or -- current situation in the direction dramatically. we took a look state by state. there is a general universal thing which is why we're interested in seeing what the results post debate are going to be when we gobbing back in the field in virginia, florida, anne ohio starting sunday. well, let me give a another perspective on the race, if i might. terms what a difference the four years has made from the time barack obama was candidate obama

clearly four years ago he was the candidate of change was running against a war in iraq, running against in october in september, october an economic complains, he had sort found a new way to appeal to voters through social media, and had certainly energized a enthese yaysically captured young voters. now as we turn to this campaign, clearly he has i'm sorry. a very different picture. emerges as a incumbent in the white house clearly he can't be the change candidate. he's governing in difficult times not only domestically but in terms of unexpected international events, which we

have all witnessed in the last couple of weeks. a prolonged and halting economic recovery, and what we have seen in our polls, the young voters although he is still getting a comparable share of the young voters he got four years ago, it's a smaller slice of the pie which in poll talk the young voters are falling out of the likely voter model. there's fewer of them, although obama is still getting overwhelming majority of them. factors still in obama's corner. most voters blame bush if the economic problems. both camps understand this. obama says he inherited a mess. romney acknowledge it is was a problem but that the recovery has been too slow. both of the private campaign polls show as do ours people feel the worst is behind us economically. a little optic in optimism.

romney has a lot of convincing to do predebate. likability was more in obama's favor than romney may have dick -- dictated a little bit of the obama strategy as it was during the debate and the issue of campaign exe tension. both sides had so many unforced errors probably more so in the romney column than in the obama column until denver this past week. in the highly polarized e lack or ituate environment. both campaigns have strategically been pealing repealing to the respective political bases. what's been unusual about the election cycle is most voters have picked sides early. we do our polling even as right after the conventions, it looks like the final weekend of the campaign. most voters know who they support. they tell us their they are firmly committed to the candidate and the number of

undecided voters has been surprisingly very, very low. single digits. it's not about persuasion. it's more about mobilization both of the conventions were like that. i think in the next three or four weeks we'll see lot more. mobilizes folks to come out because of the early voting which started in so many states. the middle is shrinking. as far as these campaigns are concerned. bash is going to talk about shortly about how there is still a middle to america once you get beyond the campaign labels. but clearly those what drive strategy in campaigns and electoral politickings. if you look at the campaign ads web and in new york we don't get a lot of the -- we're a battleground state. we're staying down here, we are seeing what all of you votes in virginia been seeing for if you're in the nine battleground states you've been seeing a lot of them.

mark murray, the senior political editor of nbc news called it a phrase off election and all these things. the list is -- we picked a grab bag of the phrases that have sort of permeated the political landscape. ironically, this this hyper partisan climate. there is a consensus, i don't know if it's optimistic or pessimistic about the tone of the campaign. with the survey we did the knight of columbus, americans have told that candidates spend more time attacking each other and talking about the issues the tone of the campaign is uncivil and disrespectful. overwhelming majority of voters are frustrated by the tone of the campaign. we have seen from july to a survey we completed that it wept from 74% to 82% of voters now telling us that campaigns have

become more negative. also when we talk about the general cost to the democracy, in july, 64% told that personal attacks and negative ads harm the democracy. it grown to 73%. during the course of the campaign, we're seeing what was a very high number of people frustrated and upset by tone of american politics has even deter your yaitd in the last couple of months. in discussing presidential elections. there was a comment, i don't have any allusion that -- illusion that the campaigns are the place to talk about the idea. i have the idea that campaigns might be one of the places where sometimes we talk about our problems. interestingly mike was speaking more than two decades ago he was talking about 1988 bush campaign. since that time, if anything the quality of our presidential

campaigns has deteriorated and i dare say in the closing four week of the campaign the fun has begun. when we get beyond the label and the phrase off campaigning, we have found in our research shared viewpoints that americans hold that unit people. i'd like to turn the presentation over to directer barbara to look at the aspect. we can take questions and hopefully some answers after barbara is finished. barbara? >> thank you. good afternoon. we pleased ton here with you today to talk about the campaign and also as opposed to research we have done on values and what people think of particular issues. and getting beyond the label. lee talked about polarization, and there is no question that this campaign is very or po

alreadyized and voters are polarized. we take a look at the question that is often asked and you've heard a lot of chitchat on social media and in the news about party id. what have seen here is that the elect rate does divide up pretty evenly. these are numbers 48, 42 reflect registered vote as a whole. if we narrow it to what we see as likely voters. the numbers get even tighter. however, had we come up with these numbers, if we take a look there's actually -- we see on one side 25% consider themselves strong democratic, 20% consider themselves strong republican at the extreme. and why is that important? that is where the debate and the arguments generally get defined. these are the people that mobilize. these are the people when you

drill down to likely voters stay in the pool. these are the people who are very active. who say they are interested in our likely to vote on election day. so that is the group that is focused on. we're looking about half of the e lek rate. the e lek trait likely to vote on the election day. until the middle we also have another half of the elect rate. that swings and slides back and forth depending upon the issues that come to the floor. depending upon the candidates of are that's are campaigning and in the race. so it's not surprising that when you talk to voters about the election, they often tell us, well, i'm really deciding between almost two evils. in other words, i don't really -- i don't really feel like i fit on either side. and that's because even when we ask if they are it democrats many tell us they are not strong democrats. they are weak democrats and similarly on the republican side. and then we have the third, which people talk about often is

the independent. which when we ask questions which way to you lean. they lean one way or the another. it's not necessarily a fixed point or fixed in time at any point. what the generally results in is the disconnect. and these numbers -- [inaudible] again we with have a consensus nearly three quarters at least seven in ten voters say we should have comprise to involve the problem. we have about a quarter think we

should stand on principle. seven in ten of the quarter, the smaller group, we follow it up and said how long should politicians stand on principle? and question give them choices. you know, a couple of months, perhaps, you know, until the next election and 70% of them, seven in ten said no they should stand on principle as long as it takes to get the type of policy that we want. so when we think about what's going on in washington and what people's perceptions on they're really thinking about that 17% that's a 17% that is standing strong and not willing to comprise on a variety of issues. so how does it translate? there is a consensus. it's a consensus which really suggest a crisis in confidence. we ask people, now this is similar to the right destruction, wrong destruction issue or question that you see about the country as a whole.

we ask it in terms of values and in terms of a moral compass to the country what we find is this number is negative number this minus number is actually larger than when people think about the country as whole. that morally in terms of value they don't feel things are moving in the right direction. and interestingly, it's across institutions. politicians are top of the negative list. you can see also that most of the institutions that we think of people do not feel that they are getting a lot of honesty and integrity and ethical perspective from these institutions. including the federal government. entertainment, news immediate with a -- media, business executive and et. i'm sure had we added pollster we would more than likely be quite the high on the negative list as well. we follow up by asking people, what about specifically the

conduct of specific professors? we see doctors actually at the top of the list. people trusting their doctors. but the numbers fall off dramatically and again, it's consistent and there's a very strong consensus that when you look to politicians, when you look to public officials, these are not people or leaders that the public feels they can confidence in terms of what they're saying and what they're doing. and interestingly, when we look at the ethical -- we ask people about the ethical conduct of politicians specifically. if you looks to the right-hand side we ask them about public policy, yes, there's a consensus 82% believe they don't act ethicalically or honestly in most situations. but on the left-hand side, we also ask about how do they conduct themselves in their personal lives? and again, the public is very disappointed in what they see in

terms of the leadership. we talked a little bit about also, well, is it possible is it possible to be in business? is it possible to be in politics without having to comprise your ethics? and the public hands down, thinks that in fact you can. that you can be in business and you don't -- you can be successful and you don't need to comprise your ethics in order to do so. similarly, in politics. there is a high expectations that in fact you can win, you be successful in the political realm. and not have to comprise your ethics. >> so what this leads us to is article tension between what people see as their own value and their expectations about how leaders should act in the public

realm. we see very common american values and consensus for the common values. which is successes born of individual effort. honesty and integrity, education, people think about teaching values to children and they think about treating others as you would want to be treated. they talk about faith and god. and in fact, faith and god is a very, very strong motivate or it when we ask people, well where do you get your guidance? how do you direct your come pass and they point specifically to family and religion. you can see the lower numbers on some of these other institutions. ..

>> you can see election 2012. not a lot of people selected

that as a choice that will lead redirect the nation in the right direction. i'd like to take a few moments to take a look at supercharged issues some of which word discussed in the campaign and some are not with the first being abortion. this is the gallup poll consistently asking over time if you are pro-life or pro-choice. one or the other. since 2009 that was the first time pro-life identification considered them more than pro-choice at

has gone back and forth now the majority considers of -- considers themselves as pro-life but we ask the question on a continuum and we do have at two each extreme that abortion should never be permitted under any circumstances and to see it should be available to a woman whenever she wants one during her pregnancy. but look at pro-life and pro-choice americans we can see that plurality is that abortion should be allowed

with rape or incest to save the life of the mother. and the plurality it should be allowed only during the first three months. so there is more of a consensus and what looks like a divided nation itself. also public opinion bess talk about the fact that the country can protect the woman and the unborn child. when the issue is a health issue that is a strong argument but it is also polarized as his argued in the campaign and in the public sector.

religious liberty. talking a lot about that today, basically most people believe in the guide and a spiritual. religion is important people see religious freedom is about practicing any religion. and is a strong driver of public opinion. people think the individual freedom of religion should be protected zero burma government was. it is central to how people view the values that guide them. looking specifically about issues that relate this to

religious liberty, there is a majority to protect the rights individuals not only in terms of abortion, employment or same-sex couples but to protect their right to of those in the position to follow the law that disagrees with their prospective. the public is very open that professionals should be able to follow there religious beliefs as well. immigration. it is thought as a polarizing issue.

use think we can find a compromise to have laws to protect the borders but also that respect in the brands. if you talk deportation and amnesty they are polarizing discussions but take the issue of immigration and having some kind of compromise of a cost to staying here has a consensus. this is not to say people are the arguments could be exploited but the understanding and their experiences that is also

positive. that when he quoted mike at the ap. we are looking at is there are a wealth of piraeus people feel are not being addressed. economy at the top. jobs, the federal debt, cutting spending, people feel there is a lot of ways. they are concerned of a future terror attack. looking specifically how people manage the recession. three out of 10 are looking for work.

renters to not think they can buy a home. and housing debacle people feel mortgages are under water and worth less than what they go. this is some of the research. not to say polarization does not describe the campaign but it does not need to describe by the politics. if you have questions we would be delighted to answer them. [applause] >> i have a question with problems them priorities

there are a lot of different i did the group's conservative to liberal race division, north and south. base on the value based issues have you looked where the particular issue causes you to ignore or trump another priority? or vice versa? >> i think it is safe to say the top-of-the-line for people in this particular election is the economy and jobs. people react to what is offered by the campaign and

the candidates. actually both of them talking how barack obama has a more favorable rating and mitt romney both are pretty divisive they are fairly divided. party is they don't see everything they want to see so it is not surprising the economy and jobs that people think about the other issues and they make a choice but this between what they are offered. >> barings is some moller

terminology. we year both dipping into rest questions but the goals are different we're trying to identify a broader themes and attitudes campaign polls are about targeting to influence. sometimes the best strategic advice to drive up the negatives. greasy it in these ads with the pledge closed over billion dollars. ha sows to dip into public opinion even though the methods are the same come with the goals are different >> and you need to get the

supporters out to vote by talking about solutions that provide compromise. not necessarily a campaign strategy for the most effective to focus on consensus and compromise if you want people to vote for you is the strongest supporters that will be there on election day. >> thank you for coming to talk to us. i was interested of your question of compromise. i am curious about the 17% if you broke that down?

>> what we found democrats coming 82% said they supported compromise. 56% agreed and 72 percent of independents so when we look at the 17% although i had people from all parties what was most interesting was the of follow-up question how long should this go one? you end up with that 17% of the electorate that wants to fight for their position those slightly more republican than democrat but

those that want to drive the debate. >> so it was about even? >> more republican indiana democrat provide do not know the number of and but you can extrapolate from the positive side 82 on the democratic side. there are some people who thought they were in the middle but that gives you a sense. >> church of england newspaper. i went to follow-up on the independent polls there was an e-mail blast this morning that dick morris said do not believe the battleground polls to say ohio had more

of the advantage of that sample 80 and how do respond? is he pushing the polls? >> this in answer but the argument is delightfully referred to as the pollsters are setting party identification and you move the question referred to as the poster conspiracy as if they try to decide whether want to go for lunch you would realize they could not conspire for lunch. >> most of them there are some that do that but to the

good ones do not because it various and the poll that i think he was referring to we had 2% more in ohio but then 1% more republican and he picked that one to take the pot shot. recent poll in ohio more republicans than 2008 there is no standard party 80. that does very from election to election you have been surprised to find a more democratic now is a little

less we had a group at marist college they ask a lot of questions about jobs and not one person and asked about the party 80 controversy. not quite inside the beltway but it would be more predominant. >> and both sides depandi who does not like the results and for those of you who may not know the difference between party identification is what do you consider yourself to be?

but in 2010 that was more republican than democrat. is help people get themselves confusing with party registration that if you are in the state to enroll in a party then you would like household you are in the survey will actually ask what year you were born. we can figure that out. [laughter] like measure that as the objective measure d you consider yourself to be young or middle-aged or old? it passed to do with attitude and how you feel.

there are very different measures. when pollsters balance the survey with a data em what we're doing is taking your sample to look at other measures the 2010 census, and region and population around the country. those are real numbers we can compare the sample but not party identification. there is no national measure because it is an attitude not every state asks people. >> the irony is if romney

does not pick up his numbers then it is okay. it goes with the turf. >> do you have any sense how white evangelical voters are breaking both the battleground states and national? >> >> is very clear they are for mitt romney. is quieter wide margin i believe his support is in the mid-60s. it is not necessarily support for barack obama but it divides between fact and undecided.

>> but who shows up in the group the biggest group to look at 18 through 29 year-old's they are not there in turn out as they were four years ago so expect a bomb went to visit a lot of college campuses. >> that was his margin last time. >> i am from madison wisconsin where obama spoke yesterday. [laughter] lot of numbers are flying around. is the material on your web site? >> go to the knights of columbus. >> we can put out the presentation. talk about traditional values did you define

traditional values? >> we provided it as a choice. >> you took my question. [laughter] do you rolled down any farther? >> abilene with the knights of columbus we generally provide the tables to look at each of the questions by a different segments of the population. i don't know how that broke down with other factors. if you are interested in that i could provide that. >> we believe strongly in

transparency but go to the website. more than you want to know which is why that is okay. >> thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> the first parish church the significance to "uncle tom's cabin" is being here. year that harriet beecher stowe by her account sought a vision of local tom been whipped to death. that is the he wrote other err novel "uncle tom's cabin" it was written as a protest not -- novel that mandated anyone in the north with the abolitionist live

if they were to a door that a fugitive slave this was the bill that was the compromise to avoid war. that is what the novel was trying to do. i a.m. against slavery. we have a right to do that. we should practice our laws as we see fit.

>> ladies and gentlemen,, once again here is chris plante. [applause] >> following keefe older men was better than that. i want to think the people

who took the cue to send this throws up my leg to the obama phone. win brent bozell asked me to lead to the stage tonight i was a little uneasy you cannot trust who he surrounds himself with to sell their mother for one cheap laugh. i thought about it. i almost declined. what the hell? it is the free dinner and free drinks. i would take him up on the offer. talk radio is unstable business and i could be fired at any moment as has